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Reposted by Michael Jennions

Our ANU @ouranu.bsky.social · Jul 21

Professor Evans … said he hoped the university’s leadership “will recognise the gravity of my concerns, which I know are shared by many others in the University community and am equally sure will be by the Minister for Education ...”

www.canberratimes.com.au/story/902083...

'Gobsmacking': Former ANU chancellor's searing letter blasts university's leadership

Professor Gareth Evans shares some advice for Julie Bishop and Genevieve Bell.

www.canberratimes.com.au

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Jul 9

Guilt

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Hanna Kokko @kokkonut.bsky.social · Jun 20

Why did bees become haplodiploid & birds didn't? And why are stick insects perfect just the way they are? This is probably the coolest paper from @koraklein.bsky.social‬ 's PhD thesis (though there's Colias butterfly work in the pipeline which I shouldn't diss...)
academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Sex ratio theory for facultative parthenogens: from fortuitously optimal stick insects to the origin of haplodiploidy in Hymenoptera

Abstract. Sex ratio theory usually assumes obligate sex; rare exceptions with facultative sex typically consider idiosyncratic cases of cyclic parthenogens

academic.oup.com

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · Jun 16

Interested in Postdoc Research here in Oxford? Many projects possible using long-term population studies of birds, field & lab experiments with insect consumers, phenology of trees all in Wytham woods & based in new Biology building
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/calls/msca-p...

Image of the new Biology Building, completed, and opening from August 2025

Lunch with the field team to celebrate another successful season - May 2025

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Max Telford @maxjtelford.bsky.social · Apr 24

It's publication day of my first book: The Tree of Life. The tree of life is a time machine that can take us back 4 billion years to meet our most distant ancestor. It is the magic that lets us tell the origin stories, beginning with this ancient relative, of everything from mushrooms to man.

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · May 1

Nature reports that the National Science Foundation has stopped awarding new grants and allotting funds to existing ones. All of them. @colincarlson.bsky.social says that unless the freeze is lifted, it “is going to destroy people's labs.” 2/10
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones

US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

www.nature.com

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Apr 18

Great news! I will definitely do this course out when I have time. I’ve already watched one video* and found it useful.

* a discussion of the dangers of using LLMs to create lecture content.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Feb 4

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

INTRODUCTION

thebullshitmachines.com

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Reposted by Michael Jennions

Daniel Noble @danielwanoble.bsky.social · Apr 8

Very happy and humbled to have received this award. A huge thanks to all my wonderful colleagues @scienceanu.bsky.social and abroad who made this possible!

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Lauren Harrison @laurenmharrison.bsky.social · Apr 9

And that’s a wrap! My last PhD research is now published 💪💪

Over 9 weeks we made males consistently experience winning or losing fights, with some winners/losers also able to mate, to test the impacts of contest outcome and reproductive investment on reproduction, growth and telomere length.

Journal of Evolutionary Biology @jevbio.bsky.social · Apr 9

New Research: Winner-loser effects on life history traits

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

@laurenmharrison.bsky.social, Oliver Stuart and @mikejennions.bsky.social

Winner–loser effects on life history traits

Abstract. Ageing of adult males could be accelerated by both high mating/reproductive effort and fighting for mates. Testing the relative importance of the

doi.org

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Apr 14

Hi. Thank you to everyone - all 161 people - who signed the letter in support of nominating @arc-tracker.bsky.social for a Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science. The nomination was lodged last night. Keep your fingers crossed for a good outcome for our masked hero.

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Apr 12

Congratulations to @jack-brand.bsky.social , the team and yourself.

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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · Apr 11

In case you’re trying to submit your response to the review of ARC grants, the Education Department’s portal is/was borked. Email instead👇

Screenshot of a tweet from the ARC providing an email address alternative to the Education Department’s portal for submissions to the review of the ARC grant process.

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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · Apr 1

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com reporting on the proposed changes to the ARC grants system.

There’s concern that getting rid of standalone fellowships will have lots of unintended consequences, especially for Early-Career Researchers.

By @donnadlu.bsky.social

Changes to ARC grants will make it harder for Australia to combat Trump chaos, researchers warn

Plan to cut most standalone positions in favour of shorter fellowships will hurt international recruitment, critics say

www.theguardian.com

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The Tattooed Professor @schwessinger.bsky.social · Mar 31

Great to see @nteuact.bsky.social coming right at this to make it crystal clear that academic freedom is not up for grabs in Australia and at ANU. Happy to talk with anyone about the issue who wants to know more.

The Tattooed Professor @schwessinger.bsky.social · Mar 28

It appears that ANU just send an email to staff that violates their freedom of speech policy policies.anu.edu.au/ppl/document....

Academic freedom: the freedom of academic staff and students to express their opinions in relation to the higher education provider in which they work or are enrolled;

ANU Policy Library - Policy - Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech (Under review)

policies.anu.edu.au

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ᐯIᑕTOᖇ ᑎIᘔET, ᗰᗪ @nizet.bsky.social · Mar 29

CONVERGENT EVOLUTION is the independent development of similar traits or features in distantly related or unrelated organisms, often occurring when they occupy similar ecological niches or face similar environmental pressures 🦉 🍏

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Mar 29

This year I’m teaching a science writing course. When the course started, I had this exact conversation with the students - Your thoughts are fuzzy phantoms that ping around in your brain. If you want to catch and share those thoughts you need to pin them to the page.

Danielle Clode @dclode.bsky.social · Mar 24

Writing is thinking. We get students to write so that they learn how to think and use their brains. Using LLMs to do your work is like trying to be an athlete by getting someone else to do your training for you.

Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · Mar 24

What is the point of what we do if the interactions are not authentic? It is evident that students are increasingly turning to LLMs to "help" them do their work, with such dreary results - from handwaving generalizations that are rhetorically fluent but vacuous to outright hallucinations.

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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · Mar 25

Meanwhile, in Europe👇

Craig Nicholson @clanicholson.bsky.social · Mar 25

ERC doubling funding to lure researchers to the EU

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-euro...

ERC doubling funding to lure researchers to the EU - Research Professional News

Commission also planning a dedicated meeting to coordinate similar efforts among member states

www.researchprofessionalnews.com

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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · Mar 25

No budget increase for the Australian Research Council 😡

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Zanna Clay @zannaclay.bsky.social · Mar 20

The loss of a legend- Kanzi, the language-competent bonobo, has died age 44.
Kanzi was exceptional in so many ways and offered us profound insights into the linguistic & cognitive capacities of great apes. He has taught us so much and will be hugely missed.
www.apeinitiative.org/remembering-...

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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · Mar 20

I’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :(

So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/

Screenshot of the linked Quarto website, with input checkboxes to change different conditions for a regression model that predicts economic performance based on US political party, with a reported p-value

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Mar 20

Come on folk, get off your butts! Let's thank @arc-tracker.bsky.social. 3500+ of you follow their posts about proposed changes in ARC funding & which schemes remain open for now. But only 135 of you have signed up to support their nomination for a Eureka prize. Sign!

forms.gle/ie7b32rWcZKK...

Letter of Support for nomination of @ARC_Tracker for a Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science

In signing this form you endorse the proposal to nominate @ARC_Tracker for a Eureka Prize in the category 'Leadership in Science'. The list of signatories will be appended to the nomination form. I wi...

forms.gle

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Szymek Drobniak @szymekdr.bsky.social · Mar 5

@nature.com has just published online our new paper!🎉🐸🌡️Lead by @patricepottier.bsky.social and supervised by myself and @itchyshin.bsky.social: in this massive research effort we overcome several common convictions related to the topics we studied. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Here are take-homes.

Vulnerability of amphibians to global warming - Nature

A 4 °C global temperature increase would push 7.5% of amphibian species beyond their physiological limits.

www.nature.com

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Mar 4

We now have 125+ signatures to nominate @arc-tracker.bsky.social for a Eureka Prize. But there should be many more. ARC Tracker has 3000+ followers. Please repost & spread the word. Most signatures are from biologists. Please alert those in the humanities, social sciences, etc to sign. Thank you!

Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Feb 13

Australian Researchers,

If you want to support @arc-tracker.bsky.social being awarded a Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science, sign this letter of support.
forms.gle/WxfVjk9JaGpn...

Q: "Are they eligible?",
A: "Let's find out"

Sign, repost & send the link to colleagues. Word of mouth. Do it!

Letter of Support for nomination of @ARC_Tracker for a Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science

In signing this form you endorse the proposal to nominate @ARC_Tracker for a Eureka Prize in the category 'Leadership in Science'. The list of signatories will be appended to the nomination form. I wi...

forms.gle

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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · Mar 4

A read today’s e-newsletter from our central administration and the heading of one section was ‘Leave management’. I thought ‘Yes, a few of you really should’ but it turns out it was a noun not a verb. My mistake.

@frankbongiorno.bsky.social
@nteuact.bsky.social

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Science & Medicine at ANU @scienceanu.bsky.social · Feb 28

A global research team, including ANU scientists, discovered that an enzyme known as a ‘NUDIX hydrolase’ is used by many fungal pathogens as a weapon to cause disease in plants. The findings are published in Science. science.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

Scientists closer to engineering more resilient food crops

Researchers have discovered a powerful “weapon” used by many disease-causing fungi to infect and destroy major food crop staples could offer new strategies to bolster global food security.

science.anu.edu.au

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